Parent slams new school opening and closing times
Your Turn
Guest Column • Sharon Rosa-Bohrer
This is an open letter to Superintendent Hrycenko, administrators and Board of Education members.

I am sure I am not the first to express my feelings about the new length-of-school-day plan, which my child only brought home today — the day before school ends for the year.

Like most parents, I do not appreciate being notified in the eleventh hour (although the grapevine travels fast) when many arrangements for the next school year have already been made. I also don't know how much help it is that you tell people to not hesitate to call with questions or concerns, but they are then told that this plan is "set in stone" and once again feel like their concerns are falling on deaf ears.

What about involving your constituents in the thought-process behind the change prior to implementing it as a way to build some support for your position, as opposed to the euphemism of "increased instructional time"? This appears to be strictly a business decisionwithout any regard to the ripple effect on students or staff, and increased instructional time is a convenient cover.

I've heard the change is really being made to accommodate the busing needed for the block scheduling at the high schools. (Remember how well that decision went over, again because of how it was handled and communicated, not necessarily the plan itself.) Why isn't anyone learning from these decision-making and communication mistakes?

I am a staunch supporter of education, and I believe the Brick district has significant room for improvement. I am an extremely active PTA member at the Osbornville School and am not necessarily opposed to an increased length of day, but am speaking as to how this schedule change affects Osbornville directly.

For all other schools, it is a minor change in the dismissal time of their day by no more than 60 minutes, but for Osbornville the change is dramatic on both ends of the school day. We are starting an hour later and ending 90 minutes later! So instead of my children being home by 2:10 p.m., they will get home at 3:45 p.m.

I find it inexcusable that a change like this would be made, which so drastically affects our school day without any warning and with the appearance of it being completely arbitrary.

Osbornville School gets the shaft

again. Is it not enough that we've had to fight for years over our school's potential closing, and now this?

I'd like to know why Osbornville is the only early elementary school (currently 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. school day) made to change to the later 9 a.m. to 3:35 p.m. plan next year? This is not acceptable for the majority of Osbornville parents or teachers

You obviously decided to have a bus come to Drum Point Road for the Drum Point School at 8:20 a.m., so why Drum Point instead of Osbornville? Drum Point only recently changed to the earlier time slot. Why are they given preference over Osbornville?

In all fairness, why weren't all the schools on the current 8 a.m. early schedule changed to 8:20 a.m.? That would be fair, and then Osbornville people would not be so outraged and perhaps it would be seen as a true commitment to increased instructional time. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

In addition, teachers from Osbornville had previously received a letter from the board saying their times would not change. So what happened? I can't imagine this is good for teacher morale, which in turn plays out in the classroom.

Not to mention, elementary school children need to be children. They need to be able to come home from school and unwind, have a snack, do homework and play!